Habitats and Species
The health of Great Lakes habitats and wildlife depends upon the protection and restoration of ecosystems. Fully resilient ecosystems buffer the impacts of potential problems such as climate change. A multitude of threats—among which is competition from invasive species—affect the health of Great Lakes habitats and wildlife and have led to an altered food web, loss of biodiversity, and, in places, poorly functioning ecosystems. As part of the GLRI, the USGS is working with others to support the protection and restoration of critical elements of the Great Lakes ecosystem by providing the science to restore native fishes in Great Lakes, restore coastal wetlands in the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and adjacent Lake Erie, develop breakthroughs in the prediction and prevention of botulism outbreaks that affect fish and fish-eating birds, and survey food-web interactions within all five Great Lakes.